


The Connection

by soy_em



Series: Wincestmas 2017 [10]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Dark Dean Winchester, M/M, Serial Killers, Weecest, Weechesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 05:14:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13404225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soy_em/pseuds/soy_em
Summary: Sam can't work out the connection between Dean's victims. And he can't cope with the way Dean makes him feel.





	The Connection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [largoindminor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/largoindminor/gifts).



> Written for Ann, in thanks for all her hard work to run Wincestmas! Thank you :)
> 
> **Warnings:** This work features serial killer!Dean. While there isn't extreme violence, there are some descriptions of violence and torture. Heed the warnings and if you don't like, don't read.

The first time Sam sees it happen, he’s thirteen. 

Everything is confusing; his world expanding at a rapid rate as he learns new things every day. They’re in a new town every other month, if not more frequently, and Sam feels like he has whiplash from the constant stream of new faces. He copes by burying himself in studying and research; trying desperately to keep up with the eighth grade curriculum while finding as much new knowledge to help Dean and his Dad stay safe as he possibly can. 

He often wonders how Dean copes. The girls don’t seem to relax his brother much, and Dean’s still too young to get alcohol with any regularity. He gets high, but he can get pot so occasionally that it barely makes a difference; Dean too suffers from having to rebuild his networks in each new town.

So Sam wonders, until the day he sees. 

He’s followed Dean out of the back of their rental house and deep into the woodland. Dean’s longer legs mean that Sam can’t quite catch up to his big brother, and he often loses sight of Dean, using his tracking skills to keep heading in the right direction. 

He speeds up when he hears a short scream, senses on high alert. He assumes that Dean must be tracking a monster, and although the scream is not Dean, maybe his brother is in need of help.

Even through his panting breaths, he can soon smell the distinctive copper of blood heavy in the air. Sam’s heart speeds up, worried that his brother is bleeding out with no one to help. 

He skids to a halt just outside of a small grove. Dean’s clearly visible between the trees, tall and strong and vital; Sam’s panic recedes for a second before he sees Dean’s arm swing down, the sunlight glinting off the knife in his hands. There’s another scream, and Dean laughs. His arm rises again, and Sam’s legs give out from under him.

Flecks of blood splatter Dean’s cheeks like new summer freckles, just highlighting the clean lines of Dean’s face. Sam’s confusion grows when Dean steps back. 

“Almost done,” Dean says, crouching down in front of the lump Sam can’t quite identify. A few quick slashes, one final scream, and Dean is finished. He’s gone from the clearing in a few minutes, leaving Sam shaking and alone. 

It takes Sam ten full minutes to pull together the courage to go and look at what Dean had done. When he does, he finds the remains of his science teacher, Mr Purkiss; although the man’s face is so mangled that only his distinctive tie-pin reveals his identity.

It doesn’t even occur to Sam to turn Dean in. All he does is scan the clearing for any mistakes Dean might have made, anything that might cause his brother to be caught. He has no idea why Dean might have done this, but he trusts his brother to have a good reason; and there’s no way he’s going to end up in prison if Sam can help it.

Dean’s as cheerful as ever that evening, cooking mac and cheese for Sam and letting him have a sip of beer as they watch an old horror movie. There’s nothing to suggest that Dean might have murdered someone that afternoon, and Sam is reassured that Dean must have been justified.

***

Sam notices more, after that. He never follows Dean again, but every so often, he’ll see Dean sneak off. It’s always towards the end of their time in a town, always after a period of frustration for his brother. He’ll see Dean come home, sober and without a girl, and know it’s happened again. He learns to look for stories in newspapers after they’ve left towns, to understand the clues that point to Dean. 

His brother is clever, Sam has to give him that. Sam researches serial killers, understands their traits, and Dean is careful to avoid the pitfalls. His kills never seem to be connected and he never kills in the same way; there’s no calling card, no typical method for the cops to piece together. Sam knows that Dean must have a reason for what he does, that something must connect his choices, but he can never find it. 

Sometimes, in the dark of night, Sam wonders if he should do something about it. If he should turn Dean in; if he should tell Dad. Even whether he should confront Dean. But he never does. 

*** 

He’s sixteen the next time he actually sees it happen. He’s sneaking back to the house after a night at a new friend’s house; the kind of night his father disapproves of because they’d been playing Magic the Gathering and smoking weed. Dad seems to hate everything that Sam does lately that’s not related to hunting, and it just pushes Sam to do more and more and hide it better.

So Sam is picking his way carefully along the road towards their house, hugging the bushes at the side of the road. They’re in a ridiculously rural, one-street town in Oklahoma, hills and mountains nestling around and making both Sam and Dean feel shut in, enclosed. 

Sam startles when he hears a noise on the other side of the bushes. Immediately, his hand goes to his waistband but he left his gun at home, so he pulls the knife out of his boot. 

“This won’t take long.” Dean’s voice, colder than Sam’s ever heard it, drifts across the bushes, and Sam relaxes. There’s the vivid sound of rending cloth, and then gurgling. Sam finds a gap in the bushes and peers through. 

Dean’s not far away, and as before, he’s stood tall above a cowering figure on the ground. Sam recognises mean Mrs Hannay from the library, who’d refused Sam a library card a few weeks ago. (Sam had just stolen the books he’d wanted in the end). Dean’s stuffed her mouth with her top, leaving her pasty, soft flesh to spill out of her waistband and around her bra. 

Sam watches, breath short, as Dean moves gracefully and quickly, making short work of the rest of Mrs Hannay’s life. Sam’s spellbound, watching Dean almost dance around her, seeing the moonlight slide off his brother as if Dean is too beautiful for mere light to touch. 

There’s almost no screaming, no noise; there’s little time for Mrs Hannay to suffer. Sam wonders if that’s because she’s the kind of person who’s actually likely to be missed. Sure enough, when Dean’s finished, he drags the body further into the field and disappears out of Sam’s sight. 

Sam walks back to the house on unsteady legs, and locks himself into the bathroom as soon as he arrives. He can’t help his reaction, he tells himself as he moves his hand furiously; this happens all the time, it has nothing to do with what Dean was doing. He keeps telling himself that as he spills across the shower wall.

***

A year later, Sam’s trembling, pressed up against a wall outside of his latest high school while the school bully screams filth at him. 

Its nothing he can’t handle; logically he knows that, knows he could have the bully bleeding on the floor in minutes, seconds probably. But it’s not the physical threat that’s the problem, its the vicious words the boy is spouting that have Sam frozen.

Words that are horrible but true - stories of how Sam looks at his brother, how Sam sometimes even looks at other boys, of how that’s the kind of thing the bully expects from trailer trash like the Winchesters. Tales of their Dad and his abandonment, and how that had caused his son to become the filth he was. The words are hateful but the ring of truth has Sam rooted to the spot.

So he’s not expecting it when the boy drops suddenly in front of him, just crumples to his knees with no sound. Dean’s suddenly in the boy’s space, a vicious smile on his face. 

“Little fucker,” Dean says, voice as cold as Sam feels. “C’mere Sammy, don’t listen to his bullshit.” Dean opens his arms and Sam flies into them, burying his face in the only comfort he’s ever known. His shoulders shake with the force of his tears, Dean’s hands patting up and down his back in a caress that’s as old as Sam.

“I’ve seen this little shit bullying half the school by now,” Dean says. “Wanna help me take care of him?” 

Sam pulls back, not sure that he understands what Dean is asking. 

“Don’t pretend you don’t know,” Dean says. “I’ve seen you watching, sometimes. Wanna help?” 

Sam stares. Dean looks so earnest, so inviting; everything Sam wants wrapped up in a band shirt and dirty jeans. He pauses, trying to think through the roaring in his brain. 

That’s when it clicks, the connection he’s been searching for all these years. 

Every single one of Dean’s victims had something in common. Every single one of them had, in a greater or a lesser way, been mean to Sam. 

Sam’s knees almost buckle with the love, the gratitude, the awe he feels for his big brother. 

“Yeah, I wanna help.”

Dean’s answering grin is blinding, and Sam never looks back. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come check out my [Tumblr](https://soy-em.tumblr.com/).


End file.
